Secrecy News -- 06/14/02

From: Steven Aftergood <saftergood@fas.org>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:01:41 -0400
Fwd Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 02:34:19 -0400
Subject: Secrecy News -- 06/14/02
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2002, Issue No. 53
June 14, 2002
** INTELLIGENCE BUREAUCRACY LAID BARE
** "INAPPROPRIATE" INFO FOUND ON ARMY WEB SITES
** BILL WOULD BLOCK DISCLOSURE OF CHEMICAL SITE INFO
** MONSIEUR CHOUCHANI
INTELLIGENCE BUREAUCRACY LAID BARE
At any given moment, U.S. intelligence officials are probably...
attending a committee meeting. Like other government
bureaucracies, the U.S. intelligence community has standing
committees on everything from employee diversity and records
declassification to the granting of awards for meritorious
performance.
The organizational structure and procedures that define the
intelligence bureaucracy are set forth in Director of Central
Intelligence Directives (DCIDs, pronounced "D-skids"), dozens of
which have been newly disgorged by CIA and obtained by Secrecy
News.
The Directives provide authoritative guidance on security
policy, management of intelligence databases, communications
with congressional committees, and preparation of the annual
intelligence budget, among other important topics. See:
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/dcid.htm
"INAPPROPRIATE" INFO FOUND ON ARMY WEB SITES
"The U.S. Army had publicly accessible Web sites that contained
inappropriate information... in contravention of Army Web
Policy," according to a recent Defense Department Inspector
General audit report.
Between June and August of last year, 77 publicly accessible web
sites were found to contain information on Army operational
plans and other data deemed sensitive, the Inspector General
found.
"The Army must prevent the disclosure of sensitive movements of
military assets or personnel," the report stated.
See the June 5 Inspector General report, entitled "Information
System Security: Army Web Site Administration, Policies, and
Practices" here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/armyweb.pdf
BILL WOULD BLOCK DISCLOSURE OF CHEMICAL SITE INFO
A bill introduced in the Senate last week would restrict public
access to information about worst-case accident scenarios at
chemical facilities. The current availability of such
information, according to the bill's sponsor, Senator
Christopher Bond, puts communities at increased risk of
terrorist attack.
Environmentalists have argued that disclosure of accident
scenarios is essential to enable communities to work to mitigate
the risk of such accidents.
Seizing one horn of this dilemma, however, Senator Bond
concluded that "The threat from terrorist attack now outweighs
the benefits of making this information public."
See Senator Bond's June 5 introductory remarks here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2002/s060502.html
See his bill, "The Community Protection From Chemical Terrorism
Act" (S. 2579), here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2002/s2579.html
MONSIEUR CHOUCHANI
Monsieur Chouchani is the (assumed) name of a mysterious Jewish
teacher of uncertain origin who taught Talmud, philosophy, and
mathematics to a small number of distinguished students in post-
World War II Europe and elsewhere.
Emmanuel Levinas, the French Jewish philosopher who introduced
Heidegger to France, called Chouchani "a marvelous master."
Elie Wiesel described his initial 1947 encounter with Chouchani
in "Legends of Our Times" (Chapter 10). He was a "dirty,"
"hairy," and "ugly" "vagabond" who accosted and berated him in
Paris in 1947, and then became his mentor. Wiesel wrote of him
again in his memoir "All Rivers Run to the Sea" (pp. 121-130).
Aside from some "indecipherable manuscripts" cited by Wiesel,
Chouchani (or Shushani) left no body of work.
"His birth and his life are sealed in enigma," according to his
gravestone in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he died in 1965.
A French journalist named Salomon Malka wrote a 1994 book about
him, entitled "Monsieur Chouchani: L'enigme d'un maitre du XXe
siecle," which has just been reissued. It may be of interest to
a few. See:
http://www.kodechonline.com/index.html?p5474.html
******************************
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691